8 Best Misdirections In Horror Movies

3. Jigsaw Was Right There With Them - Saw

Saw Jigsaw
Lionsgate

While some of the sequels served as fantastic elaborations on the original movie, and some of the sequels were outright awful, that first Saw is a modern-day horror masterpiece.

Any horror hound worth their salt is now well aware of Tobin Bell's John Kramer, aka the Jigsaw Killer, but that first film had an utterly shocking final act that completely swerved its audience.

After Cary Elwes' Lawrence and Leigh Whannell's Adam have spent so long playing the tormented and twisted games of this mysterious Jigsaw, the cat is finally out of the bag that the Jigsaw Killer is in fact Michael Emerson's Zep Hindle.

Adam beats Zep to death with a toilet lid, and all is momentarily well with the world. Well, bar the ankle stings of Lawrence and the mental torture suffered by the duo. But wait, what's that? Why, Zep actually wasn't Jigsaw. No, Jigsaw is revealed to be the 'corpse' that had been lying between Lawrence and Adam this entire time.

Much like The Sixth Sense, Saw is a movie that had its biggest twist out in front of the camera the whole time - and none of us were even aware of it.

To say that Saw was a game-changer in the horror genre is no overstatement, with that 2004 picture - itself based on a short film from Whannell and James Wan - ushering in a new style and tone for horror.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.